Friday, March 30, 2012

This is the 6th anniversary of ProgNotFrog, and as a community we are around for 8 years!

Just like every year, this year we were a lot active! Shige, Tristan, Osurec reviewed lots of delicious albums, Isabel built some community pages at facebook, and lots of us meet with eachother. Nahavanda was busy with writting our music blog search engine from scratch which will be available sometime soon at munju.net. Nelwizard, Boogie, Misongod, Apps79, Phs-Br took care of our forum.

...and this year will be the year of so many suprises, but before have some piece of cake for the froggie!!

Sunday, March 25, 2012

This is an ecm-like album from Germany, the group did one more record in a similar style. Think Eberhard Weber but without the long-drawn-out bass solos and instrumental exuberance of Weber and sadly, not as good (sorry to disappoint you all or y'all as our friend Tom would say), though I had high hopes for this outfit. Basically an instrumental acoustic straight-up band with solo uli beckerhoff on trumpet and fluegelhorn, who writes most of the songs, the bandmembers' names are in lower case as if to emphasize the university-cool sound of this record. The others are wolfgang ekholt on drums, rainer linke on bass and andy lumpp on piano. The title of the album seems to be a reflection of Miles Davis / Bill Evans "Blue in Green" from Kind of Blue, but I may be wrong. The pianist certainly is no Bill Evans, his style almost doesn't stick in my memory at all. On the other hand, beckerhoff is outstanding with his instruments, recalling the great german master Manfred Schoof, who everyone should listen to, all his albums worth hearing (at least up until the eighties, it goes without saying, when music fell off a cliff into the abyss of mediocrity for the most part). This also definitely recalls the finnish style of ecm jazz. Cover photography is really beautiful of course.

Friday, March 23, 2012

I was excited seeing the cover, since clearly it is the chart for a composition played by the nine-piece band. In fact it's the last song, secret longings, which is for sure the highlight of this album, with its opening in a diminished 5th pattern on the piano, it progresses into some really nice polytonality a la Stravinsky. Overall the album is more on the jazz scale of things but does have quite a bit of interesting energy to it. They did another album called Contrasts. It's an odd group name, combining nonet with octet, it's not quite clear to me what the play on words is, perhaps relating to the word nocturnal?

The proficiency of these german jazz musicians is outstanding. This recalls a lot the United Jazz and Rock Ensemble of Wolfgang Dauner in style.

Wednesday, March 21, 2012

Zoroaster was a persian prophet as siddhartha gautama was the buddha (or as Palo Alto, CA is the sister city to Luanda, Angola) and roughly contemporaneous. In the late nineteenth century he was catapulted into western civilizationary fame with the four-part book by my countryman the brilliant and ultimately mad Friedrich Nietzsche (psychotic from tertiary syphilis presumably, of which many succumbed in that pre-Fleming era).

"Also Sprach Zarathustra" -- on rereading this book today we can rightly claim it as an absolutely timeless masterpiece of literature and philosophy, very much a prelude to the entire angst-ridden twentieth century. In a bizarre parody of a religious new testament Zarathustra achieves enlightenment after ten years meditating alone in a forest and goes down to the people to tell them his mission. His first episode is a taste of what's to come: He informs some villagers waiting for a tightrope walker of his finds, but they mock him, the funambulist falls to his death, he converts him just before dying by telling him there is no afterlife or hell, therefore he is dying utterly in vain. Whereupon he leaves the village carrying the dead corpse, saying, "what a great haul of fish today, I converted one dead man."

God is dead -- in fact, he died when he choked on his all-powerful pity, informs the last pope. But he is god, says Zarathustra, surely he died in many different ways. Later still he finds a preacher before a herd of cows preaching a sermon on the mount and invites him to his hovel along with the ugliest man on earth and a piteous person who spends his time feeding leeches in a swamp, for a last supper that features a donkey reciting prayers...

You can see from this how modern the book still sounds. What is especially beautiful is how we get that distinct frisson of a man on the edge of madness, enraptured with his moral of how spiritualism is dead, there is no god, and life is what we make of it. We must become better than men (ubermensch) (not "supermen" as Shaw mocked him) by our own standards. The first true existentialist, his descriptions of depression as a kind of nausea really ring true to us; meantime, the man himself, wracked with migraines, chronic sciatica, presumably ulcers and some kind of inflammatory bowel disease, in addition to the aforementioned sexually transmitted infection, suffered intensely, lived in rented rooming houses and was addicted to opiates and chloral hydrates, taking an inordinate amount of prescription medication (another explanation for the almost delusional quality to his writing), hardly interacting with other people at all except to ask various and sundry for food. How was he himself an ubermensch except in his fantasy and own mind? This is of course the paradox of the modern human, that having everything, he or she is nothing but a reality show contestant. The modern human is richer than a king with all the foods and clothes in the world for him or her to possess but feels himself a beggar comparing himself to Warren Buffett or Angelina Jolie. He is required to become better than all humans who have lived before, but he can't -- not when there is everything in the world to distract the time with, such as the progressive albums we are wasting all our spare time searching for and documenting to a degree the monks of the middle ages would have found unbecoming for saint or sinner. Like them though, we can drink a trappist ale or local craft beer and forget the future by remembering the past that we live for. And when we die? Will we recall all these albums with fondness and feel we have lived a full life replete with rare records? Zarathustra whispers in our ear, "your soul will die before your body... fear nothing further..." Unfortunately, this is my own modern irony, that without an afterlife or religion, death is the end of everything, the greatest fear of all.

What we have here is a typical late-seventies / early eighties kraut hard rock private pressing, along the lines of Last Exit, Burning Candle, etc., or the previous Forest album. Some tracks are quite enjoyably hard with driving riffs, there is a lot of variety too, but hampering somewhat is the sound, which seems almost as if it was recorded on a two track mixer.

Wednesday, March 14, 2012

I bring you these in homage to the amazing finds at the growing bin and the other blogs that ressuscitate library records for our insatiable consumption. In fact two of the best of this genre appeared at the aforementioned address with these artists, Milan Pilar's "Nature Spoiled and Unspoiled" and Alessandroni's "Romance and Drama". Unfortunately these two today are not quite up to the same high standard, but how could we have known before buying and listening? That's the whole fun / terror to this endeavour.

The best tracks to me are the autumnal tracks from Milan Pilar, from Sept. to Nov., inevitably. But wait-- is it my melancholy disposition that leads me to this assessment? I should ask a positive optimistic listener their opinion, like our good friend Dave, if he would concur or instead remark, "too depressing" (or more likely say nothing). Rare indeed is the individual today who abides by the old saw "say nothing if you have nothing good to say." Rare, but to be treasured certainly. Although I agree on the superiority of spring meteorologically, I find myself estimating the number of days until the solstice when the days will begin to shorten. Like G. M. Hopkins, "the unleaving is what I mourn for." How can we be happy in a world with death? Knowing that everything will be taken away from us one day and the universe itself will sail on without us contentedly in its orbits and spheres for trillions more years to come? How could I ever say goodbye to my children? Anyways, October is definitely an inspirational month, there must be hundreds of songs out there with the same title, and few of them called June. My personal favourite is Milton Nascimento's Outubro with its completely unique chord changes and slow-moving melody from the beautiful country of Isabel.

Pilar's record features a few compositions from John Tender, which are definitely sub-par. Alessandroni's record is entirely composed and played by him on acoustic guitars, a very gentle lulling sound I must warn you is liable to put you to sleep if played late at night, its somniferous properties would undoubtedly beat out seconal and the old barbiturates downed with vodka or a highball, whatever the heck that is, and have your relatives calling 911 when they find you with a library record overdose.

It's pretty shocking how many of these were put out in the period, and equally surprising how much work composers put into some of these. I hope some of you out there will enjoy, perhaps even much more than I can.

Notice the same painter is responsible for both covers (W. Grefenius).

Monday, March 12, 2012

What a Cover! He looks like he's wearing pyjamas but really it's a shirt, we know we're in the late seventies for sure here. Instead of a mike, he's talking to an iguana in the fake backdrop of a tropical forest. Is this a satirical image, referring to some other famous cover? But turn the record over, because his eponymous poem (set to music) "it's a lie" is a really doozie, to use a word little-heard these days. I was delighted to see that the incomparable Muck Groh plays guitar on this record, along with Michael Bundt on synthesizers. Also credited are John Bedson on drums, Brian Henderson on bass, Klaus Kreuzder on flutes and saces, Hubert Stutz on guitar on the last track. The cover photo is actually from Bundt.

Steve Robinson, born Ladenburg, Baden-Württemberg, Germany, has quite a resume, having been a member of Aera, Michael Bundt & Nerve, Nine Days Wonder, Twenty Sixty Six and Then. His birth name was Reiner Geyer. (All this info from rym.)

From the German private pressed progressive files I alluded to earlier, a good comparison to the style would be with the nine days wonder songs, a touch of progressive with basic germanic late seventies smooth rock. I would add that the playing is somewhat amateurish in a lot of places on this record, perhaps due to the fact Robinson attempted to be a multi-instrumentalist here but sadly wasn't quite up to the task (ditto with his English). On the other hand his songwriting skills are exemplary. Some very odd touches can be heard throughout, whispering in the background on track 2, a very poor echo sound on track 1, off-tempo playing on track 4, he gives up on the melody and is reduced to reciting his poem partway through "It's a lie" but to make it progressive distorts the voice, etc. Some of the out of tune stuff you'll hear is not due to the rip -- it's the do-it-yourself quality of this strange record. It was printed by "blubber lips records".

I should add that peter hammill or late VDGG must have been an influence here too, note the punchy use of saxes to add emphasis to certain chords on track 7, if I had to guess, I'd say Hammill was this guy's secret idol.

I've transcribed the poem for you to read whilst listening to this, it's highly entertaining:"Ideas're [sic] burning in meFrighten my mindIdeas get mouldy in meI find no reason whyFeelings are floatin' intoHarmony linesLookin' for the way outToo helpless and blind to find what's right

I know it's a lieThat corrupt crowds are goin' to dieI know it's a lieGod brought the cancer it's his try

...

I vanish into myselfIt's one way to slip out of my strange destinyProfit owns meProfit always tries to get more of meProfit has the power of fearand that's why the wings that set me free are croppedI'm lamed [sic] cause I'm the product of my parentsHave only their coise [?] to find a womanonly their coise [??] to follow my destinationAll my erotic fantasies rise from the armpitsof my exchangeble motherI'm a part of the common man out of thewaters from thousands of lavatoriesavoid me, cause I'm the dust in your beingavoid me, cause I'm the catastrophe makinYour scheme start to staggerChase me cause I'm the one catapultingYour tears into the unknownChase me, cause I'm the fear of your dreamsI vanish into myselfAnd I know -- being born secondlyBy the call of the natureMy soul is consuming meMy soul demands more of meMy soul got power over youAnd that's why your wings, that set me free,are paralyzedI was destined as product of my parentswas destined to except their coise [???]was destined to be like youso I created fantasies into my own erosI had become individual -- as an ego --within thousands of lavatories

Sunday, March 11, 2012

Continuing on with the cd reissue ashratom series, here's another one where the wishlist was spot-on as the british say, or straight-up as the the g-dawgs say:

" Very obscure German group who released two albums in 1974, of which neither have much in common with each other. Ingo Werner is the only member on both, suggesting that Baba Yaga, in reality, are nothing more than a pseudonym. The debut is their song oriented album, performed by a 5 piece standard rock band (including copious use of mellotron), whereas “Collage” is the experimental underground outing recorded by the duo of Werner and Nemat Darman. This review covers the debut, and after listening to the first four tracks, could easily be confused with any similar era UK melodic prog rock effort (Fantasy, Still Life, Cressida, etc…). Even the English language vocals, usually a disaster for pre-metal German groups, are executed flawlessly here by Bernd Weidmann. Ingo’s former band, My Solid Ground, provides another musical reference, though Baba Yaga is not quite as doomy or heavy. And there certainly isn’t a highlight track like ‘Dirty Yellow Mist’ to rely on. However, from the fifth song on, the proceedings get considerably more interesting. Starting with the instrumental ‘Rebekka’, which itself is a beautiful piece with mellotron, acoustic guitar, bassoon and piano. ‘Turdus Merula’ follows, a bit darker in tone, and is yet another powerful instrumental track with mellotron (as a featured instrument, rather than just embellishment), percussion and piano. ‘Intoxication’ is similar but adds a rocked out mid-section that includes a wonderful psychedelic guitar solo (and sounds as if inserted from another jam session). Closing out the album is ‘La Tombeau’, a dark instrumental piece featuring organ, ‘tron, piano and percussion. It’s interesting to note that it appears Werner is handling all of the instrumental work on these four tracks, perhaps revealing that in fact, there wasn’t enough material from the five piece unit, and he appended these songs to fill the album. ‘Homage A’ appears to be a limited group effort, minus the vocalist and duo of guitarists. The odd track out on the back half of the disc is ‘Powerful Hand’, which would’ve fit nicely with the opening quartet of cuts. "

To this I would add that, having had the "misfortune" of hearing Collage first (I think it was posted by mutantsounds sometime back I'm sure the links are still alive) I was told the first album was sorely disappointing. Of course, by our low standards today, it's a masterpiece! There are all the requisite elements of the prog we love: mellotron, diminished chords and tritones, dissonances, odd instrumentals, bizarre lyrics... In my opinion, the end of the second side does approach the interest of Collage. In particular the grand piano solo with elements of Bartok and Keith Emerson in the middle very much harks forward to the brilliant instrumental piano solo in Collage. Tom is dead-on too with his description of the interesting use of the mellotron on this album.

Apologies to the side-long nature of the rip. Perhaps Mr. Morgan will have the time to split these tracks up...

Thursday, March 08, 2012

If you like early Gryphon or Mike Oldfield (his short trad Celtic tunes),surely will love this album. Medieval and Celtic feel deeply...Obscure gem.RYM says that it was released in 1979,but I'm not sure because the release year is not printed on the cover of the album.

Friday, March 02, 2012

I'm going to continue with another incredible find from our guru Tom although today on rereading his post I forgot he credited his connexions with this one. So may be we should be thanking the AC, midwest mike, and the zorro demon of zarapa. It's no secret that I love European jazz-rock, even more and with greater passion than I ever used to love American Jazz (and of course in University, I was a huge fan). Why? I can summarize in a dreaded powerpoint set of bullets:

-they are more composition-oriented-they are classical-influenced-there is less wankery of endless improvisations-they don't got that swing-the emotional tone is more variedBy that last point, I mean the mixtures of instruments create textures of emotional feelings that rarely if ever one finds on american jazz, esp. the quasi-ubiquitous (in Europe) combination of acoustic instruments with flute, or solo electric guitar with flute, think for ex. "Mireille" by Pierre Moerlen's Gong.

On this record you will notice that both the sides end in baroque patterns played by the remarkable pianist Max Leth jun. This was one helluvan expensive vinyl to get, and we often get the feeling Tom, with his accolades, provides a huge increase in cash flow to the record collectors or shops that have their hands on these big rarities. Does he get a cut from the take when he features a rarity on his cd reissue wishlist? Probably, and eventually I think he'll go to jail for it, or at least, be convicted for having too many rare records we don't have. I'd be willing to bet anything this particular one could've been had for less than 2 hundred prior to this posting, Dec. 2010:

Earlier this year, I'd heard "Caesar's Palace" for the first time. I quickly dismissed it as an all too typical fusion album of the era, describing it as thus: "Warm and slick, this smooth jazz album is similar to the American group Spyro Gyra. Presumably the first album is considerably better, but I haven't heard it." Midwest Mike pointed out to me that the first album was indeed much better, and so he sent me a CD-R to see if I agreed with him. Wow - what a difference! Opening with a Canterbury like sequence, I knew instantly he was to be right. The next couple of tracks would foreshadow the direction they would follow on "Caesar's Palace", with some slick playing and somewhat trite melodic interplay. But they close side 1 similar to how it began in superb fashion. This leads to the excellent side long track broken up into 4 movements, that recalls some of the finest Kraut fusion bands (Missus Beastly, Frob, Kraan, etc..) while still maintaining the Soft Machine/Nucleus approach of quirky sophistication. Overall, a very pleasant surprise."

I've listened many times to this record, and there are a couple of throwaway (to me) funk tunes, but there is huge variety to the music. No doubt it's superior to the follow-up Caesar's Palace, I guess Max had the touch of genius in his hands. In particular his compositions really stand out, the last track Ambrosia on side 1, with its classical structures, and the side B long track called "Symphonia" (again the classical references) which starts with a really interesting riff on the piano over chords dropping down by a half-tone. Later still we get some really insane progressive grand piano soloing, before the fusion energy builds again to a climax, a storm washes into shore on Transylvanian Chase, synthesizers pound out a powerful pestersome beat, and at that point-- a danged scratch makes the record repeat a few times, oops sorry about that guys! Hopefully it sounds really clear in your lossless flac ! Anyways, I got to the scratch in time to push it through to the fugue-like conclusion of the record although the stomping of my feet on the hardwood floor as I scream at my two-year old and kick his R2D2 stuffed toy out of the way may distract a bit. I'm sure you'll be impressed with this, perhaps not so much with my rip and scratch, but the record is mint-condition otherwise.

One last comment, check out the back cover with the band members sitting on the grass. Classic hair and outfits! Should be in a museum.

In the next series of posts I'm going to be highlighting some material from the remarkable ashratom who posts on our sister blog, the cd reissue wishlist (sister in exactly the same way Mystic, Connecticut is the sister city to Dharavi, India). He has been at this for so long, it's difficult to encounter someone more experienced and well-versed in this area of human creativity. Almost as difficult, I'd say, as encountering a person on the street who actually cares about this music. And how many of us would love to be in University right now studying for a Ph.D. in progressive rock music at Princeton, as Tom is, right this very minute? (As an aside, one of my favourite places on earth is the cloister at Princeton, NJ. Anyone in the area should take a detour to check out this campus, one of the most beautiful in the world.)

First up I've wanted for ages to bring this to everyone's attention because of the absolute dead-on remarks from way back in May 4, 2010:

"Absolutely one of the strangest bands to ever come from the original Krautrock era. Their debut "Vampire State Building" is an excellent jazz tinged Kraut fusion album - very much a product of its day and certainly a classic of the genre. It was originally issued on Philips and reissued by Long Hair a few years ago. Had they stopped there, they would've been like countless German one-offs from the early 1970s. But they resurfaced in the late 1970s, not as a pop band like most of their former brethren, but a totally off the wall band, who changed style from album to album. "Energie Programm in Rock" mixed complex progressive rock with polit-rock vocal sections. Because of the difficult music presented, it recalls the band Oktober or perhaps P.P. Zahl. But on their next album "Live: Trockeneis zum Frumstruck" they had switched gears entirely and tried their hand had instrumental jazz fusion. Then "No. 4" demonstrates an excellent guitar fronted hard rock album similar to perhaps Mahogany Rush. They continued into the CD era with at least 4 more albums - the only one I'm familiar with is "Holm" (1998) - a German language progressive rock album with some metal and some truly progressive segments. Their last album, that I'm aware of anyway, is from 2002. It's hard to imagine a group that's been more "progressive" than Alcatraz over the years, other than maybe Embryo, and even the latter has been more predictable. Not all of it works, but there's no question the non-commercial stance the band has chosen. Completely defies categorization. Bizarre really."

A couple of (personal) notes. I knew about this band like many others from Vampire State Bldg and wrote them off after hearing that one, to me it is more like pedestrian krautrock with horns, but that's just taste. So it came as a complete shock 2 years ago to find out they were actually masters of progressive music. All three of the following records, Energie Programm, Live, and No. 4 are complete icons of the style and what's more impressive, the progressive is played out on electric guitars, which is probably the hardest form of complex music to create (due to the limitations of the instrument itself, or perhaps, the way it is taught in rigid chords). On Alcatraz 4, we have one side "in rock" and one side "in jazz" although both sides sound very alike: grinding and hard-driving complex guitar work, so much on the rock end of things, that one is afraid to call it fusion in polite company. And about 50 minutes of music to boot!

Sadly, the creative genius of the band -- Klaus Holst, guitarist, died in 2010, but until then, the band was still playing and recording music in the progressive style. It boggles the mind how some musicians are so uncompromising they won't sell out even in the space of some 40 years.

Finally I want to put a call out to everyone reading this, there is an album by them that is pretty much lost even to collectors called "last station" which we've been searching forever for (that is, if you're a cicada and forever is a year or two), does this really exist? And anyone willing to share? Perhaps some citizen of our sister blogs?

Thursday, March 01, 2012

Starting with the cover painting channeling Rothko via Paul Klee (credited to quartet music and the producer of the record Vinny Golia) we know we're in Ralph Towner's ECM territory here except neither of those two entities plays a part in this output from 1984. From Nine Winds Records, with Alex and Nels Cline, Eric von Essen on bass, and Jeff Gauthier on violin, this quartet features three compositions by Essen, a group improv, and one piece each from the Clines. I hope I don't step on any toes in comparing the versatile Nels with Ralph Towner, but especially on track 3 (Blood of the Rose) he sure sounds like Towner with the hard arpeggios and surprising dissonant chords on acoustic guitar. His twin brother Alex plays percussion.

Quartet Music's first album is well worth seeking out as well, it's a little bit more accessible in songwriting than this second effort which clocks in at just under 50 minutes -- for some, almost an hour's worth of agony, for others, a small taste of true heaven.

As I was searching for Merlin (from Germany .already posted some days ago),I found another obscure "Merlin" from USA.So checked at RYM and knew that it might be good album.

So,I got it and will introduce here.

Although it is sold at cheaper price at some market places,I believe that this sole live album's value is more than the sold price.

Very enjoyable album .Maybe,you will be able to enjoy their music with the audience in this album.

Try it !!!!!!

Side 1

1. Singing Song (6:12)

2. Pay The Piper (4:00)

3. Love Is Never Tame (4:52)

4. Fall'n In Love Again (4:55)

Side2

1. Fantasy (7:09)

2. snowblind (4:32)

3. Different Ways (4:53)

4. Mister Don't Bang Those Dice (4:15)

(members)

Jeff Rowlands ....g,flute,Harmonica,vo.

Gary Roche.....g,flute,key,per,vo

Carlos Reyes .....violin,Paraguayan folk harp,key

David Kemp .....lead g,vo

Larry Santos ...b

Mark Mathias.....ds,per

Live recorded at Great american Music Hall,San Francisco,CA (1980? or 81?)

track5

BTW, I uploaded Mark Sherman's "Fulcrum Point "(1980,USA,jazz rock,Pierre Moerlen's Gong-like) yesterday.But soon knew that he sells this album at his own home page (maybe CD-R)and deleted my post soon.I don't want to disturb active-performing artists' profit with the same intensity as all of you.If you have any interest with the album,visit here and get it.

The following sight was seen from my hometown yesterday morning before the dawn.I hope this beautiful world will last forever with WORLD PEACE ....I believe that heavy rocks cannot be held up alone,but can be by many people all over the world.